Veterans Day Voices -- Service, Sacrifice & Sunrise

My retirement ceremony from the Air Force was held one year ago, on Friday, 10 Nov 2023. My first official day of retirement wasn't until 1 Dec 2023, so I note, as I've done here across the past year with other calendar moments and milestones, this is my first Veterans Day in 30 years where I am not an Active-Duty military member. I proudly claim the title "veteran" today.

Thank you to all of those who have served, and to your family and friends whose support made and make your service and sacrifice possible. I love working alongside many other veterans at both Gartner and Victory Strategies ! Our collective service is applied in different ways now, but the life and leadership lessons learned and earned while wearing the uniform considerably contribute to that work.

Doing something different today. Rather than my usual Monday Musings, my focus is on veterans. Over my long military career, I gave dozens of speeches and spoke in scores and scores of forums on a number of subjects.

To my recollection, this may be the first time I've publicly posted such a speech. Following, for those interested, are the remarks I delivered last year at my retirement ceremony. They are as I wrote them. Many know, I don't use notes nor read my speeches. The bolding, underlining, and other annotations you read here are deliberately denoted because they are the hooks and frame for my delivery.

Reviewing the video from this day, I hit about 95 percent of what I wrote. Usually, only I know what I missed, or for that matter, "messed up".

As I reflect back on my first year out of uniform, these words are every bit as meaningful as the morning they were delivered. Nothing has changed in my mind about my service, my family, or my Nation.

I would love to hear your feedback on my remarks!

RETIREMENT REMARKS

10 November 2023, 0930hrs, Historic Mount Vernon – Service Dress

OPENING

Duty, Honor, Country. During his famous farewell address to the cadets at West Point on 12 May 1962, General Douglas MacArthur time and again came back to these three words, Duty, Honor, Country. These words undergird the core and the character of the leaders we develop, and have been developing at West Point since 1802, and although, these words were not ensconced and enshrined as their motto until 1898, the year prior to when MacArthur entered there as a cadet, the cadets and classes from the very beginning embodied, embraced, and exemplified them.

Delivered on what is known as The Plain, the historic parade field on the oldest of our military academies, MacArthur, then 82 years old, delivered what is considered by many military historians as the greatest speech ever spoken by any one of our nation’s foremost and formidable flag officers. His words were both at once powerful and prescient.

He spoke of the coming space age, the changing national and international landscapes, and how the nature of war would evolve in the coming decades. He was seeing a future that many could have only imagined. Perhaps and probably, his 50 years of learning and leadership on the world stage afforded him a sight-filled and sober understanding of what would be because he had lived through what was for so long.?

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Thank you for being here to share in these moments and in this milestone with my family and me. We are at once amazed and appreciative of you taking the time to be here, both those in person and those watching online. We want to acknowledge the great lengths many of you went to be here in person today. Family and friends have traveled from far and wide, from Alaska, Washington, California, Texas, Colorado, Missouri, Illinois, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, and across Virginia and the National Capitol Region. Online, people are similarly watching from across our fruited plain, and even a few from overseas locations. There are people here and online who have been a part of my life from day one, including someone from nearly every one of my career assignments.

You may wonder why I opened with notes from MacArthur, after all, he’s a soldier, not an airman. As I reflected on the 30 years we consider today, I note that when I left for Basic Enlisted Military Training, I did so leaving Beth, and my immediate family from MacArthur’s mother’s hometown of Norfolk, Virginia. And, as we depart company here, I will return and retire at least for a time, back to Norfolk, where MacArthur and his second wife Jean, are buried. There are other things connecting he and I, for example he served as West Point’s Superintendent, and I served as senior leader at the Air Force Academy, both of us serving and supporting the growth and development of military leaders of character. My service and career do not merit being uttered in the book as MacArthur, rather to say, as a history student, his farewell words have resonated with me for many years now.

This is my farewell address, closing out what may very well be the end of my public service career. Rather than reuse Duty, Honor, and Country, which I cannot do with MacArthur’s vision, voice and vibrance, we transpose those words into three that aptly apply to my military career. Service, Sacrifice, and Sunrise. ?

SERVICE

Writing to Benedict Arnold in September 1775, George Washington, on whose home grounds we’re gathered this morning, wrote about the value of service, scribing "...?every post is honorable in which a man can serve his country." This sentiment was challenged many times during the next eight years as we fought for and secured our national independence. Arnold betrayed his service, and Washington, at West Point, where he had been dispatched to defend the high grounds there.

Later still, following the British surrender at Yorktown on 19 October 1781 and months prior to the Paris Treaty signing, officially ending our Revolutionary War, the Continental Army became purposeless, and encamped at Newburgh, New York, just north of West Point. There was growing discontent, especially amongst the officers, that they may not be compensated either for their current service, or with the pensions they had been promised during the war.

What is known as the Newburgh Conspiracy was hatched. The effort was to pressure the Continental Congress into pledging and promising payments, now and in the future. On Saturday, 15 March 1783, General George Washington sought to put an end to the Conspiracy. The officers assembled in what was called the Temple of Virtue, the meeting hall for officers at that encampment, while assembled to discuss their plan, Washington unexpectedly arrived to address them.?

His address is now legend. His presence, and powerful prose turned the conspiracy asunder largely based on his own example, and his personal appeal to the assembled, that service itself was the virtue of the moment. He implored the officers to think about all they had accomplished, and not to sully their reputations, or their honor with such a conspiracy at what would be the end of most of their military careers. Service was the virtue of the moment. I think it still is.?

Thinking back across the long years of my service, it did not start with a sense of National pride, desire for honor, or sense of obligation to this country, which has given me so much more than I could have asked. No, like many within the sound of my voice, I simply and solely joined the Air Force as a means to an end. A way, as many of you have heard me share previously, to finish paying for college. I was planning to learn a skill, earn the GI Bill, and return home after my four-year contract, to Norfolk, and to Old Dominion University, to finish my studies. All along the way, my family and I have been beautifully blessed by Purpose, People, and Promise.

The Purpose to seek the security and safety of all we hold so dear. Surrounded by People committed to the same shared goals. The Promise of a fulfilling, and richly rewarding career. No matter who you are, where you’re from, what circumstances you’ve had to overcome, or what you do, Officer, Enlisted, and Civilian alike, here, in Service to our Country, you will find Purpose, People, and Promise worth pursuing. This is why my family, and I have served for the past 30 years.

When we seek a life of Service, we quickly recognize and realize it is impossible without Sacrifice.

SACRIFICE

MacArthur, quoting the great Greek philosopher Plato in that farewell address, shared, “only the dead have seen the last of war.” My service, and sacrifice, started after Desert Shield & Desert Storm were done. The decade in which I enlisted was part of what we call the “Peace Dividend.” The Soviet Union was long gone, Saddam Hussein and Iraq’s military capabilities were a shell of their former self, our Nation was alone as the world’s only Superpower, and second place wasn’t even close. Into this era of peace and prosperity, my career really took off. Mr. Larry spoke wonderfully about that, making me sound much better than I really am.

Life was good. Beth and I had both finished college, I was now a young officer, and we were growing our family, bringing Taylor and Carter into the world. For eight years, there was little service sacrifice, especially when compared to what the next two decades would deliver and demand. Like many, if not most joining us this morning, what we simply refer to as 9/11 happened, and the world changed. ?

Beth and I had just returned to our walk-up apartment on Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany, from a medical appointment at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center an hour plus away. I was in our bedroom, when Beth called to me from the living room to see what was on the television. It was mid-afternoon for us, mid-morning here on the East Coast. The next moments and minutes changed all our lives forever.

A few weeks later, like so many others, I deployed. I left for Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, to become, essentially, the commander of the Hodja Village Tent City, where in the space of weeks after I arrived in early November, we more than doubled the tent city population from 1,200 to more than 2,400 personnel. We supported Operations Northern Watch over Iraq, Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and supported the unnamed operation moving Talabani prisoners from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay. It was just the start of enormous sacrifices we’d pay as a family. Starting then, and across the next 22 years, we have all sacrificed.?

I have missed so very much in the lives of my wife and children. This is not a badge of honor, because sacrifice is not mine alone. Beth and I have moved to new assignment locations 12 times and lived in 17 different homes. We moved homes within assignment locations several times. Taylor and Carter experienced most of those same assignment and home moves. Not all, but most. Those are sacrifices. They have sacrificed significantly.

Over the course of my career, I have been on temporary duty trips well north 200 times, 48 times in just the past few years alone. I think I have more flight time than some of our pilots. Those were as short as one day, and as long as ten weeks. Along the way, two deployments, a one-year remote assignment, and the last four and half years living apart from Beth, Taylor, and Carter, not to mention the too many days, weeks, months, and years I worked many more hours than I probably should have. In all, I calculate Beth, and I have been apart for the better part of nine years while also being away from Taylor for seven, and Carter for six. Modern technology helped collapse the gaps some, but it is foolishness not to know the sacrifice we all made.

I think of these sacrifices as Time, Tests, and Triumphs. Obviously 30 years is Time, and a lot of it. Some days, it seems it cannot have been that long; other days, well, I feel every bit of those decades pulling myself together in the morning. There were Tests for all of us along the way, but today, as evidenced here, the family I started with, remains. It was not always easy, or fun, or simple; but because of who Beth is, our family remains intact. Her sacrifices were, very likely, so much greater than my own. It is easier for the serving members because we plug right into a team. The family has to start all over, every time. That is not lost on me. The Triumphs were manifold and magnificent in reflection. Here, I don’t mean awards or accolades won, or the reward of rank, rather I mean the fullness of life spent doing something worthwhile, and along the way seeing both Taylor and Carter grow into very fine young adults. Well educated, well adjusted, and doing so across all those moves and sacrifices.?

Now, ladies and gentlemen, please indulge me for a couple minutes as Beth and I thank Taylor and Carter for the sacrifices they made and for living a life they did not seek, as I served. Kiddos, please join me on stage. We have a presentation for you, the military kids medal, denoting the importance of your service and sacrifice, and how that supported me, and your mom, across your entire lives to this point.

When General Washington concluded his written remarks, quashing the Newburgh Conspiracy, he ended by reading a letter from Virginia Congressman Joseph Jones supporting the officers’ pay demands. It is unclear whether he meant to stumble and stammer at first, but prior to reading, it has been established that he used the imagery of what he did to secure and solidify the outcome he desired. While reaching into his pocket to retrieve a pair of glasses to read that letter, he remarked, "Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown gray in your service and now find myself growing blind."?That incident was so moving, many of the assembled wept because Washington so embodied excellence, energy, and endurance.?They had never seen him wearing glasses.?

So, as I reach into my own pocket for my glasses to read these citations, I really knew it was time for me to retire, aside from my graying temples, when in the same week, on consecutive days, a Tuesday, and a Wednesday, I ordered both bifocals and hearing aids.

Read and present kids’ medal citation and present.

I have Beth’s military wife medal also framed for presentation. Because of whom she is, she wanted the focus to be on Taylor and Carter.

Where then, do all these years of Service and Sacrifice leave us? They lead to the Sunrise of a new era.

SUNRISE

Given we are here, on these historic grounds, a favorite location for my family and me, it is fitting we return one last time to our Nation’s sunrise, to consider one more historic story. During the three months of The Constitutional Convention, over which then retired-General Washington presided, he sat in a chair made in 1779 by John Folwell. It is known to us as the Rising Sun Armchair. Inlaid at the top of the chair back, where Washington’s head would have rested, is a shimmering sun. Benjamin Franklin, as captured by James Madison in the record, was puzzling aloud over whether that sun was rising or setting.

He concluded it was, in fact rising, just as our Nation was rising out of years of struggle and strife, seeking to get out from under British colonial rule, and chart our own course as a free and independent nation. My family and I look upon today in much the same manner. While this is my military farewell, this is by no means, at least I hope and pray, a near precursor to my life’s final sunrise. Rather, the rising of new Opportunities, Openings and yes, likely Obstacles.

I do not know, of course, how many more sunrises God will grant me. What I do know is, that tomorrow, we will see yet another great and glorious sunrise, the dawning of a new day with all its opportunities, openings, and obstacles to overcome alongside new purpose, people, and promise.

A few know already, but I can now share in complete openness, come January 2024, I am pleased to be starting as a Human Resources Executive Partner at Gartner, Incorporated. There are other opportunities and openings also having presented themselves, such as both paid and unpaid board work, developing leaders, and finally getting paid for giving speeches. I look forward to doing all of this under this next sunrise as well.

CLOSING

We shall close where we began, hearing once more from General MacArthur on The Plain, and his final charge to the cadets on that marvelous May morning because those words resound, resonate, and ring in my ears, and that’s not my tinnitus.

MacArthur said, “You are the leaven?which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the Nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds.

The long gray line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words, Duty, Honor, Country.”

As this era of my family and my Service and Sacrifice sunsets; and we awake awash in a new Sunrise, his charge, is my channeled charge to those officers, enlisted, and civilians still serving and sacrificing for the safety and security of our Nation because my part of it, at least wearing the uniform, has come to a close.

Ten years ago, almost to the day of this ceremony, on 9 Nov 2013, my family buried my grandfather Stevenson. He was a proud WWII Navy veteran, serving from 1942-1945 in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. We buried him in his Navy uniform. During his celebration of life service, I said to him, and to the assembled, that his watch was now over. He is relieved and I have the watch. Fair winds and following seas faithful servant sailor.

Today, I cede the watch. It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve with and for you. Standing shoulder to shoulder, sometimes bended knee to bended knee, and as we remember and reflect about those we lost along the way, sometimes bowed head to bowed head, but always as brothers and sisters in arms.

Ladies and gentlemen, I stand relieved, thank you.